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- #21
Thirvnrob
Well-Known Member
Now, about that science comment I made. I have a plethora of questions & all are welcome to jump in, regardless of your growing style - synthetic or organic.
Let me talk about the light. I had a few bucks saved up & wanted a really nice light that would allow me to grow in an open space, so I snagged a @Mars Hydro FC 1000 Smart Grow Light. What the hell was I thinking? It's a great light, but it's a Ferarri & I drive a Chevy S-10 pickup. I have zero complaints about the light, but I discovered my level of incompetence pretty quickly. I have a pool table upon which I assembled this technological marvel quite easily. As a matter of fact, I have some pictures...
There was a big gouge in the box when it was delivered, but the packaging is pretty stout & nothing inside was blemished.
Other components...
Fixture assembled & ready for transport to the grow environment.
I was alone, so I had to "manhandle" the light to my shop, which is about 80' from the house once I clear the back door of the house, the deck, steps & the gate on the fence, then through the door of the shop, then another 15' of maneuvering through a crowded space to the grow room. The light it not designed nor is it intended to be manhandled. I'm totally responsible for that error in judgment, but the point I'm making is the assembly needed some tweaking after all of that clumsiness. Next time I'll ask for help. This is but the tip of the iceberg, but the trials & tribulations that go along with biting off more than one can chew is, at least in my case, a good learning experience that has led me to take advantage of one of the features of this light which is to operate with only eight of the ten available light bars. Removing two bars effectively makes it a FC 800 but with the smart technology, (I don't need that either) but It gives me better access to the yoyos when I need to raise or lower the lights. Once this grow is finished I'm going to rotate the fixture 90 degrees for even better access to the aforementioned yoyos. The lights are presently 20" above the canopy. Now for the science I don't understand. I use photone on my cell phone. At this stage of growth I want the DLI to be between 40 - 50 according to their charts, but I can't get a consistent reading - it's all over the place & I'm not sure what to do. Also is that .40 - .50? Lastly, given all the bells & whistles that come with this light, I need to find comfort in the driver's seat. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Soil is my next area of concern. For this grow, I realized I didn't have enough soil to fill all the containers so I had to buy some on the zon. I got me some Vermont Compost Company all purpose compost based potting mix. The mix is beautiful to behold & running my hands through it was wonderful. I added some perlite & nothing else. The plan was to grow one AG & one DC in each the soil I bought & one each in the soil I built myself. Alas, another stoner brain fart occurred & the Double Chocolate is in my soil mix & the Acapulco Gold is in the VCC mix. A few months ago, @Gee64 brought BRIX to my attention. Sigh... I tried to get a measurement today, but had no success - I couldn't read the refractometer, so I'll go through the manual & troubleshoot tomorrow, but I'm done with it for today.
I've had very few problems maintaining temps between 70F at night & 82f during the day. I'm running a humidifier around the clock in tandem with a radiant heater & the RH in the room has been between 55% - 65% with a few exceptions, those being a drop in humidity for a few hours because the humidifier runs out of water sometimes overnight - operator negligence. I have an infrared thermometer & most of the time The leaf temp. is within a degree or two of the ambient in the room. Talk to me Gee - I'm not able to dial temp & RH into exactly what it should be.
@StoneOtter mentioned feeding his sip girls CalMag on a daily basis. The AG are consuming at around twice the rate of the DC, but I'm adding one tsp of CalMag to each gallon of water. 4 weeks into veg, are there any proactive measures I need to apply?
Lastly, I purchased a water filtration system that filters sediments & chlorine/chloramine, but has no RO filter. I may have fallen prey to a snake oil salesman, but to cut to the chase, my water measures out at 130 - 130 ppm pretty consistently. I'm thinking about adding another sediment filter.
Clearly, I have a good enough understanding of the science to screw everything up royally, so please feel free to dumb things down if you have comments or suggestions...
Let me talk about the light. I had a few bucks saved up & wanted a really nice light that would allow me to grow in an open space, so I snagged a @Mars Hydro FC 1000 Smart Grow Light. What the hell was I thinking? It's a great light, but it's a Ferarri & I drive a Chevy S-10 pickup. I have zero complaints about the light, but I discovered my level of incompetence pretty quickly. I have a pool table upon which I assembled this technological marvel quite easily. As a matter of fact, I have some pictures...
There was a big gouge in the box when it was delivered, but the packaging is pretty stout & nothing inside was blemished.
Other components...
Fixture assembled & ready for transport to the grow environment.
I was alone, so I had to "manhandle" the light to my shop, which is about 80' from the house once I clear the back door of the house, the deck, steps & the gate on the fence, then through the door of the shop, then another 15' of maneuvering through a crowded space to the grow room. The light it not designed nor is it intended to be manhandled. I'm totally responsible for that error in judgment, but the point I'm making is the assembly needed some tweaking after all of that clumsiness. Next time I'll ask for help. This is but the tip of the iceberg, but the trials & tribulations that go along with biting off more than one can chew is, at least in my case, a good learning experience that has led me to take advantage of one of the features of this light which is to operate with only eight of the ten available light bars. Removing two bars effectively makes it a FC 800 but with the smart technology, (I don't need that either) but It gives me better access to the yoyos when I need to raise or lower the lights. Once this grow is finished I'm going to rotate the fixture 90 degrees for even better access to the aforementioned yoyos. The lights are presently 20" above the canopy. Now for the science I don't understand. I use photone on my cell phone. At this stage of growth I want the DLI to be between 40 - 50 according to their charts, but I can't get a consistent reading - it's all over the place & I'm not sure what to do. Also is that .40 - .50? Lastly, given all the bells & whistles that come with this light, I need to find comfort in the driver's seat. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Soil is my next area of concern. For this grow, I realized I didn't have enough soil to fill all the containers so I had to buy some on the zon. I got me some Vermont Compost Company all purpose compost based potting mix. The mix is beautiful to behold & running my hands through it was wonderful. I added some perlite & nothing else. The plan was to grow one AG & one DC in each the soil I bought & one each in the soil I built myself. Alas, another stoner brain fart occurred & the Double Chocolate is in my soil mix & the Acapulco Gold is in the VCC mix. A few months ago, @Gee64 brought BRIX to my attention. Sigh... I tried to get a measurement today, but had no success - I couldn't read the refractometer, so I'll go through the manual & troubleshoot tomorrow, but I'm done with it for today.
I've had very few problems maintaining temps between 70F at night & 82f during the day. I'm running a humidifier around the clock in tandem with a radiant heater & the RH in the room has been between 55% - 65% with a few exceptions, those being a drop in humidity for a few hours because the humidifier runs out of water sometimes overnight - operator negligence. I have an infrared thermometer & most of the time The leaf temp. is within a degree or two of the ambient in the room. Talk to me Gee - I'm not able to dial temp & RH into exactly what it should be.
@StoneOtter mentioned feeding his sip girls CalMag on a daily basis. The AG are consuming at around twice the rate of the DC, but I'm adding one tsp of CalMag to each gallon of water. 4 weeks into veg, are there any proactive measures I need to apply?
Lastly, I purchased a water filtration system that filters sediments & chlorine/chloramine, but has no RO filter. I may have fallen prey to a snake oil salesman, but to cut to the chase, my water measures out at 130 - 130 ppm pretty consistently. I'm thinking about adding another sediment filter.
Clearly, I have a good enough understanding of the science to screw everything up royally, so please feel free to dumb things down if you have comments or suggestions...
healthy n happy 
. CL
